


Much Is Taken

by KivrinEngle



Series: Not to Yield [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, Human Disaster John Laurens, M/M, Reincarnation, don't try to read this first I beg you, this makes no sense on it's own
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KivrinEngle/pseuds/KivrinEngle
Summary: A side-story to Much Abides, this lines up beginning with Chapter 22 of that story. This will make literally no sense unless you're reading that, so be warned!Alex knows who he is, now, and what he has lost. What he doesn't know is whether he can get any of it back.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Series: Not to Yield [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901632
Comments: 214
Kudos: 238





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read through Chapter 22 of Much Abides, this is going to be literal gibberish, so you might want to do that first!

Jack is gone.

The house feels like a mausoleum. Marissa keeps wiping away tears, and Jordan is silent, and Alex knows they feel like they failed. Laf won’t come out of his room.

Alex is furious.

He doesn’t understand any of it. Jack had told him he wanted to stay, and that he knew he wasn’t ready to go back. They all knew he wasn’t. He was going to wind up in the damn mental hospital again, only this time there wouldn’t be a Marissa to get him out, because he’d left them.

Alex doesn’t tell the Wallertons about their midnight conversation, doesn’t tell them that Jack had already decided to leave, because everyone is hurting enough as it is. He wanders through the empty room that Jack left behind, finding traces of him everywhere, memories that linger as painfully as those of the ghosts of his past, and he does not understand.

Someone from the Department has the absolute fucking nerve to call Jordan that very day and ask if they’re interested in another placement, since they have an opening now, and Jordan channels all of his inner Washington to tell them, in the most unmoving tones, that they are entirely uninterested, and that they do not consider the spot open.

“He’s not gone for good,” Marissa insists, although Alex can see the doubt in her eyes, in the quaver of her voice. “We’re keeping everything just the way it is so that when he comes home, it’ll be easier to transition him back into our lives.”

They close the door to his room, and nobody even suggests gathering up any of the items he’d left around the house.

It’s haunted, now, by the ghost of the boy who isn’t there. Alex sees his shoes by the back door, and can’t help but look around for the familiar curly hair or the lightning smile, and has to remind himself every time that Jack is gone.

By the third day, he’s decided he’s to blame. It wasn’t his fault that he’d succumbed to the grief of Laurens’ death, and he doesn’t feel guilty about it (Jordan and Marissa are working very hard to ensure that he doesn’t) but he’d been so unreasonably angry with Jack afterwards, and he still doesn’t know why. It hasn’t gone away, either. When he thinks about him, there’s an immediate tension in his stomach, a rush of emotion that he cannot quench, and a sense that he’s still missing something huge, something so important that the foundations of the world are at risk if he can’t figure it out. There’s still a huge mental block there, though, and he’s too weighed down with Hamilton’s shit to really work it out.

The timing is the absolute fucking worst. Why did Hamilton have to dump all of that on him at once, just when things were about to go wrong anyway? He’s lost a month of his life to Hamilton’s grief, and he’s nowhere near close to processing and integrating all of it.

Jordan gets it, though. Now that Alex has finally figured out who he is (and he’s still kicking himself for his stupidity at having taken six months to recognize Washington, who honestly hasn’t changed that much except for having much better control of his temper) and they can talk honestly, their relationship is much improved. He remembers John, too.

Laf doesn’t really, not yet. He has vague memories of missing Laurens after his death, and of course, he’s memorized practically every book on the American Revolution, so he knows all of the details that Alexander hasn’t even passed along yet, but there’s not really an emotional connection. Marissa hadn’t known Laurens except in passing, as one of her husband’s many aides de camp, and her knowledge of him is practically all second hand. It’s only Alex and Jordan who really remember.

It’s not fucking fair, that he has to do this now - process the loss of John Laurens and everything it had done to Hamilton, at the same time that they’re all trying to deal with Jack leaving and the hole in the world that he leaves behind him.

“Why did you let him go?” Alex asks one afternoon, when he and Jordan are splitting wood together outside. It’s a good way to work off some of his extra emotions, and Jordan doesn’t seem comfortable leaving him alone with the task right now. “Back down South, I mean. We knew he was never going to get the assemblies to agree to his project. He would have been safer with you.”

Jordan sighs. “I didn’t see that I had much of a choice, Alex. You know how impossible it was to dissuade him from anything he set his mind to.” He splits another log, sending the pieces flying to the sides. “I couldn’t exactly stop him. He was going to go one way or the other. The only question was whether he went with my blessing or without, and I am glad I didn’t withhold it, in the end. I wouldn’t have wanted him to go doubting my regard, or the belief I had in him.”

“He worshiped the ground you walked on,” Alex says, letting himself give a little laugh, though it feels wrong to laugh about anything right now. “He never let me say anything critical of you, even when you royally deserved it.”

Jordan chuckles, too. “Don’t you think I know it? I remember that duel with Lee. I could have knocked both of you senseless that day.”

“You should have,” Alex says bitterly. “We were idiots. What were we thinking, playing with fire like that? Dueling. What the actual hell?”

“You were idiots,” Jordan says fondly. “All of you, but you and Laurens in particular. I spent half my life worried that you would get yourselves killed.”

“And then he did,” Alex says. He hacks at a log, and misses. “And for stupid fucking rice. They should have let the British take it and left well enough alone.”

“That was never his strength,” Jordan sighs. “The two of you had the most pressing desires to get yourselves killed I had ever seen, no matter the virtue of the cause.”

“Do you think that’s what he did?” Alex asks. It’s hardly even a whisper. “I’ve wondered for so long. There were times that I worried for him, at his own hand.”

“I don’t know.” Jordan’s voice is so heavy. “I hope not. We were so close to the end of the war, and to so many ways he could have spent that passion and energy for good.”

They keep chopping in silence, and Alex works on letting himself actually feel his grief, rather than pushing it back. It’s so horrible, such a sharp, stabbing pain, that he would rather do anything else - write or translate or think of anything else. But Jordan and Marissa have been helping him work on this, helping him to see that this is what he had done the last time, and that Alexander’s refusal to accept those losses had done a great deal of damage. He’s trying to learn from his mistakes. He’s trying to be better than Hamilton.

~~~~~

He remembers John. He remembers blue eyes and golden hair, and the kind of easy teasing Alexander had accepted from so few people. He remembers late nights around the fire, talking about anything and everything, sharing songs and raucous laughter, or pensive, melancholy silence that was easier because it was in company. He remembers grief so sudden and pervasive that he’d feared he would never break free of it again.

He remembers Betsey trying to comfort him, reminding him of their eternal hope of reunification in the world to come. He doesn’t think this is what she had expected. He wonders leadenly whether she is in this world with them, and hopes she isn’t; he wouldn’t go looking for her if she were. She had suffered enough pain at the hands of his ambition and carelessness the first time around.

He remembers Phillip, who had come along so soon before the horrible news; he remembers telling his infant son stories of the friend he would never get to meet. Laurens had teased him in a letter about acting like a pater familias surrounded by offspring; he’d eventually been right, but even when Phillip had been their only child, Alexander had been so absorbed in him, so determined to be the father he had wanted for himself. He’d never dreamed that John would not get to meet Phillip, or any of the children he had already dreamed of to come. He had told them stories of John, all through the rest of his life, trying in the only way he could to keep the memory of his dearest friend alive.

He remembers. Sometimes he loses hours to it, lost in thought and sentiment, almost unaware of the world around him. He’s dimly aware that what he’s doing is also avoiding thinking too much of Jack, of this new loss that has stricken their little family with sudden and terrible sorrow. He can’t handle that at the same time.

~~~~~

“Where is he buried?” Alex asks, a week after Jack has left. (That’s how they’re all measuring time now, whether they admit it or not.) “Laurens. They buried him at the battlefield, didn’t they?”

Laf nods slowly, and speaks with a fraction of his usual energy.

“They did, but then he was moved. They sent him home, when his family were ready.”

“Back to Mepkin?” Alex can remember some of John’s descriptions of the family plantation, his fondness for his home at war with his firey sentiments against the slavery that allowed his family to keep such a plantation working.

Laf nods. “I read about all of our burials,” he says, and the morbid nature of their conversation strikes Alex again with a fraction of its weirdness. “You were in New York City, and I was in France, but they buried me with soil from Bunker Hill.” He smiles nostalgically. “I always was divided in my heart between my two countries. I am glad they allowed me to be buried in both.”

“And George and Martha would have been at Mount Vernon, right?”

Laf nods, but makes a face. “Do not talk to them about it, though. They are sick at the thought.” Alex makes a questioning face, and Laf sighs. “Slavery. They cannot get away from the guilt of it. There is a graveyard for the people who were enslaved there, too, and the fact that both of those exist in one place - it is difficult.”

Alex gives a low whistle. That’s one aspect of all of this he hasn’t thought about at all, yet. He has plenty of sins on his shoulders from his time as Hamilton, but at least the burden of having personally enslaved others is not one of them. He doesn’t know how he could have lived with that guilt, whether it properly belonged to Alex or not.

He goes to Jordan a few days later. He’s been working on all the exercises they can give him, working to integrate his memories with his present, working to properly experience and move through the grief that Hamilton had pushed aside. Damn him, anyway. There’s some progress, for sure; he can think about John without the sudden, sickening rush of horror, and can make himself remember the ache of loss without shutting down or having to work himself into exhaustion to avoid the thoughts. There’s still a hole in the world, though.

“One of the times I ran away, before I got here,” he says without preamble. He doesn’t need it anymore; Jordan knows him too well. “I went to New York City.”

Jordan puts down his work and gives Alex his full attention. “I’d read something about that. There was concern that you were looking to disappear in the city, to avoid further placements in homes you disapproved of.”

“That’s not why I went.” He sits in the chair opposite Jordan, one that spins, and turns himself back and forth, back and forth, unable to sit still. “I went to see their graves.”

“Your family?”

Alex nods. “It was awful. They gave me this horrible gaudy pyramid thing. It looks ridiculous, in the middle of the modern city now.” He stares at the far wall. “Angelica and Eliza had these little markers, and Philip-” he swallows hard. “They don’t even know where exactly he was buried, and it’s all changed so much with time, there’s no way to tell.”

“I’m sorry, son,” Jordan says gently. Alex doesn’t correct him anymore; that was more Alexander’s problem, anyway.

“It was awful,” Alex says again, not making eye contact. “But it helped, a little. A chance to say goodbye.”

“You want to visit Laurens’ grave?” Jordan says, and thank god for Jordan Wallerton, because Alex wasn’t sure he would have been able to get the words out. He nods.

“I never did, before,” he murmurs. “I could not bear to think of him truly gone. I could not bear to think of him.” Jordan nods slowly.

“I know,” he says. He turns to his computer and looks up a few things, while Alex sits silently with his grief, breathing through it, not pushing it away. “Do you want to go next weekend?”

Alex blinks at him in surprise. “I wasn’t saying I have to go right now,” he objects.

“Alex, you’re a bright young man,” Jordan says, smiling at him fondly, if still somewhat sad. “I don’t know how many times we’ll have to say this to make you understand. We are going to do absolutely everything we can to help you through this. A road trip to South Carolina is not a big deal; I’d go sooner if I could get away from work, but just now I think it would be better to go over a long weekend, if you can wait that long.”

“That- that’s fine,” Alex stammers. “That’s more than fine. Thank you.”

“Don’t,” Jordan says, his voice heavy. “I want to go and pay my respects, too. I had hoped for so long that he would be here again, that we could find him and try to make up for the lack of help I had been able to offer in his first life, but-” he sighs. “I don’t think he’s back, Alex.”

“He probably wouldn’t have wanted to,” Alex whispers. “He never was afraid to die.”

“That doesn’t always have any bearing on whether we return, you know,” Jordan reminds him. “Marissa and I have been searching for years, but I think if he were here, we would know it by now.” He smiles wistfully. “I cannot imagine John Laurens remaining hidden for long in this world - not with that fire and passion. He would be at the front of every Black Lives Matter protest in the country.”

“Maybe,” Alex says. He doesn’t know whether to hope that John is somehow at rest, or to hold on to a vague notion of hope that maybe, somewhere, a memory of his dear friend is still alive in the world. It doesn’t seem incredibly important at the moment, though. He’s not ready for hope right now. He has a sudden realization. “Is that who Marissa went looking for, back at Christmas?”

Jordan nods. “We had hoped - but it didn’t pan out.” He looks far more tired than usual, and Alex can sympathize with that.

“Are you still looking?” He hopes he doesn’t sound desperate. Jordan shakes his head.

“No, Alex.” He sighs again. “We’ve reached the point of doubting that John is anywhere to be found, and-” he hesitates a moment. “And we’re not taking anyone else. We’re not filling Jack’s spot.”

“Even if we found John?” Alex asks, because he has the shitty sort of brain that forces him to consider all of the worst possible outcomes and think through them.

Jordan nods again, eyes old and tired. “We’d do our best to help him find a good family, and we’d absolutely make sure you all got to be together as much as possible, but we’re not taking anyone else in.”

“Do you think Jack is actually going to come back?” Alex asks. He feels the surge of anger again, and is so annoyed with Jack for leaving in the first place that he’d almost tell Jordan he doesn’t care whether he comes back. This, of course, would be a lie, but sometimes Alex is just that cussed.

“I hope so,” Jordan says. “I never regret sending one of our foster children home, when it’s done properly, and when they really are ready to go. It doesn’t make them any less dear to us, and they deserve their own families whenever possible. But in this case-”

“They’re full of shit,” Alex summarizes. “We all know it. He never wanted to go home at all.”

“So why didn’t he speak up?” Jordan asks, looking frustrated himself. “We’d have fought for him.”

“I think that was the problem,” Alex says gloomily. “He never really believed anyone would. I think he figured it was going to happen anyway, and he might as well just get it over with.”

He remembers how resigned Jack had been in the middle of the night, and how he’d told Alex he was taking care of the problem - as if Jack were the problem.

Alex really wants him to come back so he can punch him.

He wanders away from Jordan’s office with his mind very full - of Jack, and John, and graveyards, and the suffocating certainty that he’s still missing something very important, and he has no idea what it is.

~~~~~

Marissa and Laf are wholly in agreement about their proposed trip to Mepkin - which Laf tells them is some kind of monastery or something now. They talk about going all together, but it’s eventually decided that Alex and Jordan should make the trip, as it has the most meaning for them.

“But, you know,” Marissa points out. “You’ll be right near Charleston. If you wanted to check in on Jack, maybe take some of the things he left…” she lets her voice trail off meaningfully.

They haven’t heard from him since he left. Laf is hurt by the silence, and Jordan and Marissa are worried, but Alex gets it, somehow. He knows what Jack is doing - cutting them off, cutting himself off, because it’s easier that way than dealing with a lingering distance and an increasing lack of knowledge of one another’s lives. It makes sense, awful though it is.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Jordan says firmly.

Alex and Laf gather together a box full of Jack’s things the next week, although Marissa is insistent that they don’t take everything. She still firmly insists that he’ll be home again before long, and that everything should be left as it is. They collect some of the more personal items he left without, though - some sketchbooks and notebooks from his shelves, the hoodie he always wore when he was particularly stressed, the book he’d been in the middle of - and put them together with a letter that Marissa has written and a care package that they all put together.

The school has spring break scheduled for the last week of March, so that is when they go. Alex has been back for a week or two, though he hardly pays attention anymore. He’s got too much to deal with to worry about algebra and civics right now. Jack’s been gone for more than two weeks, and Alexander is still bleeding guilt and grief all over his soul in random, violent waves that still take Alex by surprise, and everything has kind of gone to shit in the past month or two. It’s almost difficult to think back to before, when things had been so impossibly good. He’d always known it wouldn’t last, but it had fallen apart faster than he’d imagined.

Jordan drives, of course, even though Alex has his learner’s permit now, and he’s been starting to get Jordan to teach him the basics. They have to be careful about it, of course; there are real risks to getting behind the wheel when you might be struck by a flashback at any moment.

They talk, all through the long trip down. Sometimes Alex isn’t sure if he’s talking to Jordan or George; when he mentions that thought, Jordan laughs a little.

“You’re still figuring yourself out, Alex, so I get how it seems to you. Once your memories are all back, though - once you’ve managed to integrate your past and future, it’s not like that anymore. There’s not a difference between the part of me that was George Washington and the part that was born in this time. I’m just myself, with all of my memories and experiences from both lifetimes.”

“It really works out like that, then?” Alex pushes. He can’t imagine it - can’t imagine really feeling like he IS Alexander Hamilton, rather than just being, like, haunted by the guy.

“It’s supposed to,” Jordan allows. “It doesn’t always turn out that way, especially if Second-Timers don’t have support and help in the most important times. People wind up with split personalities, sometimes, which almost never ends well.”

Alex nods. He can see how that would be a problem.

They find a hotel on the outskirts of Charleston that evening; it’s too late to go to Mepkin or to visit Jack, and they make plans to do both of those things in the morning. Alex sends Jack a text to give him a heads-up, and Jordan tries to call the Laurences’ home for the same purpose, but neither of them get a response. Jordan tries to hide his concern, but Alexander had once been close enough to Washington to practically read his mind and draft letters in his voice, and he’s not very successful.

Alex goes to bed with a stomach full of butterflies, feeling like, one way or the other, the next day will not leave him unchanged. The grief pushes in close, and the sense that he’s missing something floats tantalizingly out of reach, and he has very strange dreams.

~~~~~

Mepkin Abbey is beautiful, but there is no trace of the buildings that had stood on the grounds in John Laurens’ time. Alex can’t help but be disappointed. There’s no house that John had grown up in, no stables in which his horse had lived. It’s an abbey now, and there’s a gift store and historical placards and a little map of the gardens and whatnot. It’s warm for March, inappropriately sunny (to Alex’s well-tuned sense of drama), and he and Jordan take their time walking the grounds. His heart is beating faster than it should.

“It’s OK not to be ready, Alex,” Jordan reminds him. “We’re here because you wanted to do this, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind.”

“No,” Alex says shortly. “I need to.”

It’s a simple headstone - none of the nonsense they’d built over Hamilton - with engraved words.

_Sacred to the memory of John Laurens_   
_Son of Henry and Eleanor Laurens_   
_Born 28th October 1754_   
_Died 27th August 1782_

Alex has to choke back a sob, clapping his hand over his mouth. It doesn’t change anything; it’s nothing he hadn’t already known. But it’s there, carved in stone, and it feels very final.

There’s another line further down, smaller and harder to read, and Alex has to crouch down to see it properly.

_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_

Alex doesn’t know Latin, but he knows this phrase - he does, or Alexander does, and it really doesn’t matter. “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country,” he murmurs in a low voice.

Jordan bows his head, as though in prayer, and Alex explodes.

“How dare he?” Alex roars, turning on Jordan. “That was all Henry Laurens, I know it! How dare he write that on John’s grave?”

Jordan looks at him with heartbreak evident on his face. “I know, Alex. It’s hard to remember, sometimes, how very much we believed it then. You know John did. He would have agreed with the sentiment more than anyone.”

“And that’s exactly why it’s obscene,” Alex hisses. He shouldn’t be doing this, certainly not here, at John’s grave - but on the other hand, he would have told John himself if he could, and this is the closest he’s ever going to get, now. “It’s not sweet or fitting, General. It is a colossal loss to the country, to the causes he subscribed to, to the body politic.”

“I know,” Jordan says.

“I told him not to unnecessarily risk himself,” Alexander seethes. “To take care of himself, for the sake of the country, for the sake of-”

He shuts up suddenly, hearing an echo of his own words in his head - to Jack, as he went to South Carolina to face hardships Alex could no longer be a part of. “Take care of yourself,” he’d said, clasping his arm, and Jack had nodded, his eyes already distant, already somewhere beyond where Alex could reach him -

Jack, who is in Charleston, only miles from where John Laurens lies buried.

Jack Laurence, who remembers being shot from his horse and dying in an ambush, where he had told Alex he’d led his men to their deaths.

Jack, who sometimes speaks French, who fought in the war, who walked away from Alex to go south again, just like last time.

Alex sits down hard on the ground as his legs give way beneath him. Jordan’s at his side in a second, grabbing his arm so he doesn’t fall any farther.

“Alex!”

“Jack,” he says, flat and certain. “Shit. It’s Jack.”

“What are you talking about?” Jordan says, somewhere between concerned and bewildered.

“You’ve been looking for John Laurens,” Alex says, feeling about a thousand miles away from planet Earth. “And he was under your nose all the time. I didn’t see.”

“Are you saying that Jack is-”

“Oh my god,” Alex says, holding his head with both hands as the pieces fall into place. “He told me once he died without glory, without honor.” His head is full of bees. “That there aren’t monuments with his name engraved.”

“That doesn’t fit,” Jordan objects.

“No, it does,” Alex groans. “I told him not to look himself up, not to research his past, when he remembered his name.”

“I remember the day he did,” Jordan says. He sits on the ground beside Alex, lost in thought. “You don’t think he ever did any research?”

“Pretty sure of it,” Alex admits guiltily. “And he’s only remembered a bit, so it’s going to be nothing of great consequence, as far as he can tell.” He groans again, head aching. His brain is trying to fit them together - Jack and John, as different as he can possibly imagine two people being - and yet, there were similarities. “Of course he’s John Laurens. Who else would be stupid enough to go throwing away his shot, going back there when he desperately didn’t want to?”

“Jack didn’t want to go back?” Jordan looks startled. “Alex, did he tell you that?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, squeezing his eyes shut. “Asked me to help him figure out how to stay. He knew he wasn’t ready to go back, but then I shut down for a month, and then he was gone.” He looks over at the gravestone, hating the inscription, hating the permanence of the words - but it wasn’t, it wasn’t, because he knew where John was.

After years of missing him, like half of his own soul, he had been living in the same house with John for six months, and he’d been too stupid to see it.

“We have to go to Charleston,” he says breathlessly, though a building sob that he honestly isn’t sure whether to classify as grief or joy. “We have to go get him back, right now.”

~~~~~~

Jordan breaks all of the speed limits on the way to Jack’s house, while Alex calls home. Marissa picks up on the first ring.

“Alex, are you OK? What happened at the Abbey?”

“It’s Jack!” Alex shouts down the line, as if that will get the information to her faster. “Marissa, it’s Jack! He’s John!”

“What?” Marissa’s voice is a whisper, horrified and disbelieving. “Alex, that’s not possible. We would have known.”

“But we didn’t,” Alex says grimly. He watches the side streets zip past, far too slowly. “I finally figured it out. Too late.”

“You have to go get him,” Marissa says, just as certain and solid as he knew she would be. “Right now.”

“We’re almost there,” Alex promises. “I don’t care if I have to bite his parents. I don’t care what we have to do.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to handle it,” Jordan says warily. “I don’t know that we can expect to just take him back, just because we know who he is.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Marissa says. “We’ll figure something out. You call me the minute you get there. I want to talk to him. Why didn’t he say anything?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says, though he has some suspicions. “We’ll call you, I promise.”

Every minute it takes to get there is too long. He’s on edge, anxious and furious, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to punch John or kiss him, or maybe both. They pull up outside the house, the address Marissa had given them, and Alex is out of the car before Jordan has it in park.

He runs to the front door, pounding on it and hammering on the doorbell at the same time, and then backing up to look up at the house, looking for movement in any of the windows.

They’re all dark and still.

“John Laurens, you get out here right now!” Alex bellows, but there is no answer. He turns to Jordan, breathing hard. “Don’t tell me they aren’t home!”

Jordan looks around and sees a neighbor poking her head out to look for the source of the ruckus. He jogs over and talks to her for a minute and then comes back, looking more worried than Alex has seen him in a while.

“She says they haven’t been here in more than a week,” he says quietly. “Apparently none of the neighbors know where they are.”

Alex stares at the house, and tries not to explode.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This can be read before or after Chapter 23 of Much Abides! <3

It’s almost miraculous how fast Marissa manages to get herself and Laf to Charleston. By midafternoon, they’ve flown in, rented a car, and met Jordan and Alex outside the Laurence’s house, where they’ve been doing an unproductive amount of pacing, ranting, and trying to make phonecalls. The one that’s actually been helpful was the call to Phil, who is actually only minutes away when Marissa and Laf arrive, and all of them congregate outside the empty house. Alex can see the neighbors staring at them through the curtains. He’d love to give them something to really stare at and gossip about. 

Marissa hugs Jordan and Alex frantically, as if they’re the ones that have been lost. She looks almost sick with desperate hope.

“You’re sure?” she demands, holding Alex by both shoulders. “You’re sure he’s John Laurens?”

Alex nods. “I don’t know how we all missed it all this time,” he admits. “All the clues were there.”

“But he’s nothing like John,” Lafayette objects. “I mean, I don’t really remember him yet, but I’ve read all about him. Jack is not reckless and hotheaded, and John Laurens undoubtedly was.”

“Just because we made assumptions about how John would seem in this life doesn’t mean we were correct,” Jordan says quietly. “Growing up in such a different culture - the old notions of chivalry and honor and the rest were so much a part of John Laurens’ upbringing, of course he might not be the same. And he didn’t start remembering anything until much later than either of you,” he reminds Laf and Alex. “He hasn’t had nearly as much time to become more like the man he will be, eventually.”

Marissa gives a laugh that sounds a little too close to tears. “And besides, not reckless? What would you call what he did in coming back here?”

Phil frowns. “Now, Marissa, it’s not like I was sending him into battle. Plenty of Second-Timers manage to go home again with no issues.”

Her eyes flash. “And plenty wind up back in care again, with a great deal more trauma than they’d have had if you left them alone while they were still trying to learn the ropes. You rushed it, and now Jack is in trouble.”

“We don’t know that,” Laf objects, looking worried. “Maybe they are just visiting family elsewhere, to celebrate Jack’s homecoming.”

Phil sighs, looking guilty now. “I’m afraid not. There’s a reason I was headed here myself.” He pulls out his phone and begins to play a recording, putting it on speaker so they can all hear it. They huddle close and keep still, trying not to even breathe so they can make out the words.

“Jack, how are you?” Phil says cheerfully enough on the recording, though there’s a note of concern under the words. 

“General Schuyler.” It’s Jack’s voice - but it isn’t, at the same time. There’s a sharpness and directness to it that they haven’t heard before, and his accent is different. The gentle Southern lilt is mostly gone, and there’s a twist to the vowels that sounds far more English. “Sir, allow me to report on the conditions of the siege here in Charles Towne.”

“Oh, Jack,” his mother says in the background, sounding disgusted. “This is not the time for this nonsense! Tell Phil how well you’re doing.”

“Jack, how are things going?” Phil asks carefully.

“The city is surrounded on all sides, sir,” John says. There’s no doubt about it now. Alex buries his face in his hands, unable to bear the familiar tones of a voice he hasn’t heard in so long, he’d almost feared to have forgotten it. “They’ve cut off our escape on every side, and we are under assault from burning shot.”

“Are you yourself well?” Phil presses. 

“I have not been injured, General. My men follow my orders exceedingly well. We are attempting to repair the fortifications where they have been damaged.”

“Jack, stop this!” His mother’s voice is sharper, closer. “We are not playing these games any longer.”

“General,” John says, his voice rising, “I fear no help is coming. General Washington will not come, and Hamilton says they have no aid to send and no way to get it here, even if they had men to spare. They will not consider my plan to enlist the help of the slaves by granting their freedom.”

“Jack. You need your medicine,” his mother says, now loud enough that she must be right alongside him. “You’re raving again, dear. Phil, I’m sorry, we’ll have to call you back when he’s a little calmer.”

“They argue for surrender, General,” Jack says, his voice nearly a shout now. “I have voted against it. We must hold this city! We will repair the fortifications, at whatever cost..”

“Jack, calm down,” Phil says, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

But it’s Jack’s mother who answers, apparently having taken the phone from him. “I’m so sorry about that, Phil,” she says smoothly. There’s a noise in the background that may be distant voices. “He really has been doing very well, and I’m sure he’ll be fine again in just a little while, if you want to call back later.”

“We need to schedule a time for an in-person home visit, Mrs. Laurence,” Phil says. “Would tomorrow work for you?”

“Oh dear, I’m afraid not,” she says distractedly. “We’re not at home just now. Vacation, you see - we thought getting Jack out and about might help him shake off some of these delusions. I’ll call you in a week or so, when we get home, and we can set something up.”

“I’m afraid that’s not sufficient,” Phil says firmly. “I think we need to plan a visit much sooner than that. I can travel to meet you.”

“Jack!” His mother scolds, and sighs into the phone. “I’ll have to call you back, I’m afraid. Thank you for calling.” She hangs up without another word, and Phil turns the phone off. 

“Oh my god,” Marissa says softly, covering her mouth with a hand. “Phil, when was this recorded?”

“Yesterday,” he says grimly. “I drove down at once, and I haven’t been able to make any progress in locating them. I’ve got a team working on trying to trace them down.”

“Have you contacted the police?” Jordan asks. He has all the bearing and gravitas of Washington when he gets his ire up, Alex notes through a haze of panicky thoughts that are racing in circles through his brain. Jack is missing, and even the Department can’t find him, and his damned parents are medicating him with something, and it had been John Laurens on the phone, Alexander knows it, and what the hell is happening?

Phil shakes his head. “You know how dangerous it can be to get them involved, Jordan, especially if a Second-Timer is in the middle of a major flashback.”

“The last thing we need is for them to decide that he’s dangerous, or that he is willfully not complying with their directions,” Marissa says breathlessly. 

“And he sure as hell won’t be complying in that state,” Jordan says, nodding agreement. “I just wish we had their resources.”

“He’s talking about the siege of Charleston,” Alex says quietly, trying to think, trying to remember what John had ever told him about that, but it’s hard - he doesn’t have those memories yet, not directly. He shuts his eyes, pressing his palms to the sides of his head. “At Yorktown, though, I remember. He said something about that - during the siege. Something he did.”

“Alex, you know he’s not quite in his right mind just now,” Phil says gently. “I wouldn’t go looking too hard for messages. We need to find him and get him help.”

Alex opens his eyes and glares at Phil. “Phillip Schuyler, right? Were you ever going to tell me you were my father-in-law?”

“I’ve done my best to steer away from that subject, for multiple reasons,” Phil says delicately. “I’d rather keep our relationship professional and focused on the subject at hand, if you don’t mind.”

His phone rings, and Phil answers it right away, turning around and speaking quietly. Laf leans forward, grabbing at Marissa and Jordan’s arms. “What are we going to do? He does not sound OK!”

“We have to find him,” Marissa says urgently. “Where might they have taken him? Who goes on vacation when their child is having major mental health issues?” 

“He doesn’t think we’re coming to help,” Alex mutters. They all look at him. “You heard him. ‘Washington won’t come, Hamilton says there’s no help.’ He thinks he’s on his own.”

“We’ll see you in a minute, then,” Phil says, hanging up his phone and turning back to them. “The team will be here in a moment, and then we can try to coordinate our activities.”

“Can’t you just call her again, or Jack?” Laf asks. “He never answers his phone for us anymore, but maybe if it’s you-”

“I don’t think he has it,” Phil cuts in. “He was speaking to me from a number with a local area code, not Virginia. I’ve tried calling every number I have for any of them, and there’s no answer.”

A white SUV pulls up, and two people get out. Alex blinks in surprise. It’s Margy and Sam, the team that had taken him and Jack to the Wallertons to begin with. They hurry over, looking as worried as the rest of them feel.

“Glad you could make it,” Phil says officially. “We’ve lost track of them entirely, and I have reason for significant concern for Jack Laurence’s wellbeing.”

Margy shakes her head, looking frustrated. “I don’t understand what happened, Pops. Why was he sent back so quickly? The paperwork says there was no gradual reintroduction at all.”

“We were under a lot of pressure from above,” Phil says, voice tight. “There was too much distance to do a gradual transition, and I had assurances from the team on this end that the Laurences were prepared to handle the situation.”

Alex gapes at them, realization battling with his overwhelming urge to just go, just find Jack, just get him home again. “Peggy?”

“Hey, Alex,” she says, darting him a quick smile. “It’s Margy, now. Glad you didn’t run.”

“Me too,” he says, feeling lightheaded. There’s too much going on - a veritable hurricane of thoughts and feelings swirling through his head. John was trying to tell them something. He’d been reporting to General Schuyler, a military sort of report. He’d done something during the siege, something strange enough that Alexander remembers it.

“We don’t have any real leads,” Sam is saying to the group. “We’ve interviewed the neighbors, and none of them have seen the Laurences in days. The last time the next-door neighbor remembers seeing them, he was concerned. He said Jack seemed to be trying to leave, and they dragged him back inside. The neighbors don’t know what’s been going on, except that Jack disappeared for months, and he didn’t think it was worth calling the police over, but he was disturbed.”

“I should think so!” Marissa says. She looks dangerous, Alex thinks, like a lighted fuse. 

“We can’t trace their plates or anything, can we?” Jordan asks, and Phil shakes his head. 

“Not without involving the police,” Margy says. “Did Jack say anything about vacation plans before he left?”

“He mentioned golfing,” Laf says, screwing up his face in thought. “His father wanted to go golfing, and his mother wanted to buy old things.”

“Great,” Alex says. “So all we have to do is check every golf course and antique store in the country.” He kicks the ground hard enough to hurt his foot.

“Alex,” Margy says reasonably. “At the very worst, we’ll have to wait a few more days until they come home. They’re not going to stay away on vacation forever.”

“No, but they could stay away long enough to do real damage,” Marissa says quietly. “Jack’s already been through so much, and I’m very worried for him after hearing that call.”

“Call?” Margy says, and Phil plays it again so they can all hear. Alex doesn’t want to listen. He doesn’t want to hear John like that, frantic, abandoned. They hadn’t been able to come last time, and he knows that Charleston fell, that John had been held prisoner.

John’s voice comes through again, arguing for holding the city, for repairing the fortifications. He’s not surrendering, Alex thinks with fierce delight. Good for him. He never did give in when he should - and this time, that’s a good thing. 

“I wish we could tell him to hold on,” Jordan mutters. “Tell him that we’re coming, this time.”

No-one was coming last time, and John Laurens had known it. What had he done? 

“Fortifications,” Alex whispers. Laf looks at him sharply. “I remember a story he told me. The fortifications had been damaged, the canon crews were unprotected, and he asked what he could do. They needed wood, branches, to repair the walls, and there weren’t supplies available. So John went to his father’s garden - second house, here in Charleston - and used the trees and shrubberies to repair the fortifications.”

“Really?” Jordan says, looking surprised. “Henry Laurens was always very proud of his gardens.”

“And I am not surprised that John would have done it,” Laf says, frowning. “But what does that have to do with this?”

“He mentioned it twice, reporting to Phil,” Alex says, suddenly frustrated by the fact that nobody else is keeping up with him, understanding his train of thought. “He was trying to get that message through - didn’t you hear his voice? He only sounded like that when it was really important.” He doesn’t question why he knows that fact, or when he had heard it before. He doesn’t have time to slow down and think. 

“So, do you think he’s somewhere near a fort? Maybe a historical site?” Phil guesses. 

Alex doesn’t answer. He’s already on his phone, looking for something. He looks up in a minute.

“No, I think he’s still in Charleston. Near his father’s old house.” He waves the phone at them. “You know what’s near the old Laurens house? A ton of antique shops, and the country club with a golf course is five minutes’ drive away. I don’t think they’re out of town at all - I think they’re ‘on vacation’ right here, trying to keep Jack out of the neighbors’ sight, and maybe away from you, Phil.”

“That’s a lot of guesswork, Alex,” Phil says, not looking convinced. 

Jordan puts a hand on his shoulder. “From anyone else, I’d agree with you - but Alex doesn’t do guesswork. I think it’s worth checking out.”

“Not like we have any other leads, anyway,” Margy says with a sigh. “OK. Sam and I will start by checking the country club.”

“We’re going antiquing,” Marissa says, grabbing Laf’s arm. “We’ll check all the stores in the area. If Karen Laurence is there, I’ll find her.” Alex spares a moment to almost feel sorry for Karen Laurence. Almost. 

“I’m going to see if I can contact his parents’ places of employment and see if I can get any leads on where they might have told them they were going,” Phil says. 

“We’ll take the Laurens’ house, then,” Alex declares, looking to Jordan for confirmation. He nods, and they scatter, hopping into their separate cars and taking off as quickly as they can. 

Alex gives directions from the map online, and Jordan drives, fingers tight around the steering wheel. 

“We’re going to find him,” Alex says, to convince himself. 

“Yes, we are.” Jordan’s voice is dark; it’s a promise. “After that, I don’t know what will happen, but we’re not leaving him with them again.”

There’s such a tone of sorrow and regret in Jordan’s voice that Alex squints at him. “What is it?” he asks - not as Jordan’s foster son, but as Washington’s aide, as his confidant. 

Jordan sighs. “I let him down - and now I’ve done it again in this life. I couldn’t provide John Laurens with assistance in Charleston, or when he was a prisoner of war, even though he wrote and asked for help both times, even though he had no-one else to turn to. Is there any wonder he left the family and went south?”

“He never blamed you,” Alex says fiercely. It’s another of the things he knows for certain, without knowing how. “Never. And I’m sure he doesn’t now.”

“I do,” Jordan murmurs. “If I’d known it wasn’t his idea to go back - that he wanted to stay - I’d have done everything I could, little though it is.”

“Well, we’re just going to have to get him back and not let him leave again,” Alex insists. If they’d been able to do that in the first place, John wouldn’t have been killed in a trifling sortie, the worst sort of waste of his brilliant, too-brief life. He thinks for a moment, wistfully, of what could have been - his life after the war, with John alive and working at his side. They could have done so much more, together.

The old Laurens house isn’t a house anymore. It’s an incredibly fancy bed and breakfast called The Governor’s House Inn; Alex feels outclassed just looking at it. It’s been changed and updated over time, and Alex wonders for a minute if he’d been wrong. Maybe John wouldn’t even have been able to recognize the place, as changed as it is by time and circumstance.

He doesn’t have time to second-guess himself, though. They have to find John.

“There’s no way they’re actually staying here, is there?” Jordan asks, and Alex shrugs. On the one hand, that level of coincidence would be kind of astounding. On the other, it would make sense that John would be thinking about the reinforcements he’d built from the gardens of this home if Jack’s family was staying here now.

“I’m going to find out,” he promises. He rummages around in the back of the car until he finds a baseball cap, and grabs a small armful of books from the box they’d packed for Jack. “Wait here?” Jordan nods, and Alex has to grin for a moment. Jordan trusts him to take the lead, even on something as important as this. 

He saunters in through the front door, consulting a random piece of paper he grabs from the notebook and pretending it has a name on it. 

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the desk asks sweetly, and Alex shoots her a cocky grin.

“Delivery for a guest here - Laurence?” he says, squinting at the paper. “I think this is the right address, but my manager has the worst handwriting.”

“Do you have a room or suite name?”

He shrugs helplessly at her. “This could honestly say literally anything. Any way you can look them up for me?”

She smiles sympathetically and checks her computer. “Looks like they’re in the Washington Suite in the Kitchen House. If you can’t make personal delivery, please bring your package back here and we’ll hold it for them.”

“Absolutely,” Alex agrees. “Thanks.” He saunters out again, trying to keep himself from breaking into a run. They’re here - he had been right. “Washington Suite,” he mutters to himself in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me.”

He waves inconspicuously for Jordan to come and join him, and goes to stuff the paper back into the notebook he’d pulled it from - and the inked lines on the back of it stop him dead. 

It’s him.

Well, not him, exactly - but it’s Alexander Hamilton. It’s far from professional, but Alex’s breath catches at the level of detail in the sketch, the expression the artist has captured on his face - like Hamilton had been watching something tenderly, with great affection. He’s seen more portraits of Hamilton than he’d like - they seem to pop up everywhere - but this is something different - unposed, with no airs. Alexander as he’d been to his friends - to his friend.

John drew this. 

His fingers tighten on the paper, but he will not let it be crumpled. He fights back a wave of emotion. He remembers treasuring the letters he had left from John after he’d died, preserving them as best he could. He would have given his arm for something like this, to remember John by.

“Alex?” Jordan asks. He’s suddenly at Alex’s side, like Alex has lost a bit of time, and he blinks. “They’re staying here,” he says, but he doesn’t have the breath to share his excitement. He’s still shocked by the drawing. He shows it to Jordan wordlessly. 

“Did Jack draw this?” Jordan asks. Alex nods. 

“He must have. I wasn’t trying to look through his books or anything, I just grabbed it by accident.”

“Let’s go see if we can find him,” Jordan says, putting a hand on Alex’s shoulder that serves to help steady him a bit, and Alex nods again. They head for the older building that the woman had pointed him toward; the Washington Suite is clearly labeled, on the ground floor of the old house. This house is as old as he is, Alexander realizes with a start - older, by a few years. That’s a strange thought. He feels that old, sometimes, when the darkest depths of his memories rise up against him. 

They knock on the door, and wait. Alex shifts his weight from foot to foot, glancing nervously at the windows, but the curtains are drawn, and there’s no sign of movement within. 

“Maybe they’re out and about,” Jordan suggests, disappointment heavy in his voice. “We can always wait for them to get back. I’m not leaving here again without him.”

Alex shifts again, undecided, and then swiftly turns and shoves the books into Jordan’s hands. “Hold these, and cover me,” he says brusquely. 

“What are you doing?” Jordan asks. He takes the books without protest, though.

“Crime?” Alex says insouciantly. “Only a little, though, and my motives are pure.”

He’s had a little more experience picking locks than he’d like Jordan to know about, but this isn’t the time to be squeamish about his secrets. He has the door open in under a minute, without breaking the lock or anything. 

The suite is dark and quiet, and Alex begins to feel like he’s gone too far. They’re sure to have security cameras somewhere, trained on the doors, and he’s crossed a line -

There’s a sofa-bed pulled out in front of an empty fireplace, and someone is lying in it, motionless in the dark. Alex forgets everything else and makes for it, hoping against hope he’s not going to find what he’s afraid to see.

But he does. 

It’s Jack - impossible, close-mouthed Jack, who thinks they aren’t coming for him; he’s lying flat on his back, still and silent.

Alex has seen Jack sleeping many, many times - and this isn’t right. Jack sleeps curled up in a ball, far smaller than he has any right to be, with his hair all in his face and his mouth slightly open. He’s not sleeping. He looks like a corpse. 

“Jack!” Alex shouts, not caring now if the entire bed and breakfast hears him. “John! Whoever the hell you want to be!” He flings himself to his knees beside the sofa bed and shakes Jack roughly by the shoulder. There’s no response. He grabs Jack’s hand in his own, and it feels far too still and cold. “Jordan?” Alex says, suddenly so afraid he cannot breathe. He’s only felt this sort of fear once before, when they told him Philip had been-

Jordan’s by his side in a rush, feeling for a pulse, checking for breath, and Alex can’t breathe at all himself until Jordan nods, collapsing a little in relief. “He’s alive. He’s breathing,” Jordan says, and collapses to his knees himself, next to Alex. “I don’t know why he’s out this cold.”

“Excuse me?” An offended voice comes from the open door, and Alex glances away from Jack for a second to see a woman standing there, staring at them in shock. “What do you think you’re doing to my son?”

“I think we’re about to find out exactly what’s wrong with Jack,” Alex mutters to Jordan in an undertone, and stands up. He doesn’t let go of Jack’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! They're reunited! This is what you guys wanted, right? 
> 
> Yeah, I know. Go ahead and scream at me - I do deserve it. Once you're done screaming, though, and while you're waiting for the new chapter of Much Abides (yes, it's coming tonight. Yes, I'm still writing it now. No, I have no life), I want to ask a little favor! I'm making myself a Lams fic cliche bingo sheet - um, for no reason at all. None whatsoever. ANYWAY, I'd love it if you'd give me a suggestion or two of fic cliches if you leave a review! 
> 
> Again, this is for no purpose at all and will definitely not come into play anytime soon. 
> 
> Thank you guys for putting up with me and my ridiculousness. See you in a bit on the other story!


	3. three

Alex has always had a particular gift for finding quiet in the middle of chaos. Now, the chaos has often been instigated by his own actions, so he’s not entirely sure that counts, but the point is that he has an ability to keep himself still and calm in the middle of chaos.

That comes in handy.

He holds it all together while the world turns into a rush of noise - voices and sirens, people coming and going and talking non-stop, until the only piece of calm in the stupid Washington suite is John, lying so still. Alex doesn’t let go of his hand. The moment when he finally feels a slight stirring of movement from the hand in his is when Alex’s heart finally starts to beat properly again, and he finally lets himself hope. He doesn’t know when the last time is that he truly gave himself that freedom.

He blocks out all the noise and confusion around them and focuses on John. still far too still, but there. He’s there, and a light which had gone out in Alexander’s heart so many years ago is beginning to flicker to life again, despite the absolute batshit insanity of the situation.

He’d never actually let himself hope that John would really be in this world, not even after he’d remembered him, not even when he’d come to grips with the intensity of the loss that still shakes him to the bones every time he lets himself think. John Laurens had been so consummately the eighteenth century gentleman-scholar-warrior, uniquely situated to that time and place, that Alex hadn’t been able to imagine him in the world of cell phones and airplanes and attention spans shorter than he’d ever thought possible.

But he’s here. He’s Jack, no doubt about it, and he fits strangely well into the world, and Alex would have said at first that there’s nothing of John Laurens about him. That isn’t true, though, and he sees more of it all the time. The fact that he’d run off down South and stopped answering Alex’s texts should have been signs enough, Alex thinks, forcing himself to try to make light of the situation before his heart actually overloads and kills him.

The medical team finally get there, and Alex is quickly satisfied that they’re both knowledgeable and not utterly useless bigots, so he’ll let them tend to John. He’s handling all of this very well, he tells himself - and then John opens his eyes, flinching away from the light, and Alex feels himself go to pieces. He looks so lost, so far away, that despite his hand being in Alex’s, he might still be lost somewhere in the world.

Alex takes a deep breath, not able to look away. That look of desolation, as if he’s utterly abandoned, is exactly what he’d been most afraid to see. He clings tighter to John’s fingers, remembering the last time he had seen him, just after the surrender at Yorktown. They’d been going their own ways, both so young and arrogant that it had never occurred to him that anything could go wrong. He had his dreams to pursue, as did John, but there was no doubt in his mind that they would find themselves together again, fighting for their chosen causes side by side, just as it had been during the war. Their leave-taking had been a fairly merry one, all things considered, in the joyful afterglow of the military victory and the hopeful expectation of better things still to come.

He honestly does not believe he has ever been that happy or hopefully ever again, in either life.

The medical team are taking numbers, getting medications from Jack’s mom, assuring Marissa that he’s going to be fine, and Marissa’s look of exhausted relief is an exact mirror of how Alex feels. “Hear that, sweetheart?” Marissa murmurs, smiling down at Jack as she tenderly pushes his hair out of his face. “He says you’re going to be fine, so you can stop scaring us all to death now.”

Hardly likely. He’s still John Laurens, throwing himself headfirst into dangers he hasn’t taken the time to work out. He’s still Jack Laurence, a very bright boy who is also somehow the stupidest person Alex has ever met, with no apparent sense of self-esteem or self-preservation. Actually, all of that managed to describe John, too. How the hell had they missed it all along? Either way, Jack or John, he is constitutionally incapable of looking after himself. “Like hell he can,” Alex mutters. It’s absolutely not one of his character strengths.

John looks at him at that, something like recognition in his eyes at last, and Alex tries to reign himself in. The team from the SDRA are there, finally, and Alex is already really through with Phil after all of this. If he’d managed to let Jack’s dad actually escape, they’re going to throw down, Alexander’s father-in-law or no. Phil probably wouldn’t mind a chance to punch him, anyway, after everything he’d done to Eliza.

The cops call all the adults over to start taking their statements, and Alex grins fiercely at the sight of Mrs. Laurence in handcuffs. It does seem a little unfair that Marissa isn’t going to get a chance to actually disembowel her, what with the police presence, but that probably will work out better for all of them in the end, anyway.

“Alexander?”

The voice is a tired whisper, barely audible above the hubbub, but Alex’s heart constricts with a sudden, sharp pain that’s only equivalent to what he’d felt when he’d been shot. He’s on his knees in an instant, getting as close as he can. And it’s still Jack looking back at him - green eyes rather than blue, hair a mess of dark curls as opposed to shining gold, - but somehow he knows, without a doubt, who he’s speaking to for the first time in more years than he’s willing to count.

“John.” He breathes the name, like a prayer he never thought he’d have another chance to pray, and the astounding grace of what he has been given almost undoes him again. John Laurens is not dead.

Not through any fault of his own, of course. He could easily have died of an overdose at the hands of his parents, and then Alexander would have lost him again, the second time in two lifetimes, and he would not have been able to survive that loss again.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Alexander demands. He’s actually angry with him. He’d forgotten, somehow, how John Laurens could stir up his temper. He was too close to Alexander’s heart, which rendered him dangerous indeed.

“Which time?” John breathes, and there’s a smile playing around the corners of his mouth that Alex hasn’t seen before, but Alexander remembers it with a crashing surge of memory - anguish and delight, loss and belonging and a sense of rightness he has never found again, and he shudders at the influx. “I expect you plan to take me to task for several offenses.”

He’d forgotten, somehow, what an absolute shit John could be. Alexander had thought he’d remembered everything about John, going over every letter he had from him so many times, sharing what stories he could of the man with his children, but he had forgotten this. How many times has he lost part of John and not even known it?

“My dear Laurens,” Alexander begins - and then there is no holding back the hurricane of emotion any longer. It crashes in on him. He never thought to get to say those words again, and it undoes him completely. He buries his face by John’s side, and doesn’t care who sees him or what they think. All he can care about is the warmth of John’s hand on his head, and the solidness of the hand that is still clasped in Alexander’s.

He almost falls apart again as soon as he makes himself look up, when John’s hand slides off his head, and Alex sees that he’s fallen asleep again. “Hey,” he bellows at the paramedic, “he’s out again! Is he still OK?”

She comes back over at a trot, checking vital signs again, but she doesn’t look too worried. “He’s fine,” she assures Alex gently. “He’ll be in and out for a while, probably, until he gets this stuff cleared out of his system. We’re going to transport him to the hospital so they can monitor his condition, help with hydration, all of that stuff.”

“You aren’t taking him away again,” Alex snaps, narrowing his eyes. “No fucking way.”

“I’d let you ride along, but we can only take one aside from the patient,” she says doubtfully. “Usually the parents-”

Alex forces himself to let go - John’s asleep, he won’t even notice the absence - and charges over to Jordan, who is listening to Marissa speak to the cops. Alex grabs his arm.

“I need you to let me go with John in the ambulance,” he says desperately. “Please, sir.”

Jordan looks at him for a long moment, and then nods slowly. “Very well,” he agrees, and there’s a slight smile on his face. “I don’t know why I ever thought things might have changed.” There’s enough depth of meaning there that Alex knows there are going to be conversations ahead, and he accepts that with good enough grace. “We’ll be right behind you.”

His presence in the ambulance is for Alex’s sake, since John never wakes or stirs, even when the paramedic starts an IV and the EMT switches on the sirens for the drive. It’s scary to see him so still. Alex tries to stay out of the way, and thinks about nonviolent means of revenge.

They whisk John away as soon as they get to the hospital, and Alex doesn’t get to complain about it this time. The Wallertons join him in the ER waiting room, and the four of them sit together in tense silence, waiting for any word. Alex only starts to really consider violence when the hospital staff refuse to let him and Laf go anywhere near John’s room.

“Parents can visit,” a nurse says unsympathetically. She glances at their ragtag little group, obviously coming to some conclusions about all of them and the ways they don’t match. “You two can wait here for them.”

“But he is our foster brother!” Laf protests, and Alex feels a surge of anger at the subtle roll of the eyes the nurse gives them. Apparently foster relationships are not particularly valid in her estimation. Alex considers the efficacy of a long, loud, and public speech on the nature of value judgments and their negative effects on patient welfare, but Jordan shoots him the most Washington-esque glare he’s ever seen, and he keeps his mouth shut.

Until Jordan and Marissa are gone, of course, and then Alex leans close to Laf and says, “We’re going in, right?”

“Of course,” Laf says, looking genuinely offended that Alex is even asking. “You heard the room number?”

“Yes,” Alex whispers. “I’ll steal a key card for the wing; you figure out a distraction.”

It all takes way, way longer than it should. Turns out the key cards have to be calibrated for each wing manually, and he winds up having to stalk an elderly couple and lift one of their cards at the last moment, leaving them exceptionally confused as to how they had lost it. Laf kicks up a public fuss about visitation protocols that results in long lectures about family visiting policies, and then gives an exceptionally convincing performance of impassioned grief that culminates in him stalking out of the waiting room, head held high, while all the other visitors murmur to one another, teary-eyed, about that poor dear boy and his foster brother. His time with the drama kids at school has paid off.

Alex meets Laf outside, and they manage to pull off a daring heist-maneuver that involves a food delivery cart from the cafeteria, a triggered alarm outside the maternity ward, and then a flat-out run for it as they hope they haven’t been seen. It’s pretty impressive for having been pulled off at the last moment, and Alex mentally awards them extra points for style as they fling themselves into John’s room just as he’s looking at the Wallertons as if they’ve proposed to sacrifice him to a volcano.

He looks at people like that a lot, though, to be fair. Alex doesn’t think Jack has any clue how expressive his face is, or how bad he is at hiding his distress when he thinks he’s keeping it quiet. He knows in an instant that he’s Jack again, both by the latent terror in his eyes and by the fact that he’s lying still. He has never, ever known John Laurens to take kindly to enforced quiet, even when he’s been shot in the shoulder. Again. Jack is almost certainly a better patient.

“You still look like shit, by the way,” Alex tells him, thinking back to their first few days together with a weird nostalgia - back before he’d figured anything out, when he’d thought that Jack Laurence was just a spineless, spoiled suburban kid. “Dying of some horrible swamp fever again?”

He is relieved beyond measure when Jack actually laughs, tired and rusty though it is, and blames golf and antiquing - which is fair. Those are worse than malaria, by far.

He cannot help himself, in his relief; he can’t keep from putting in his two cents worth as the Wallertons try to start filling Jack in on what he’s missed in the time he’s been unconscious. He wants to collapse on the floor in relief when Jordan finally, finally asks Jack to come home with them. It’s almost over. They’re almost out of this whole nightmare.

Jack shakes his head, looking like he’s about to vomit, and Alex nearly falls over in shock. He knows, more than anyone, how much Jack wanted to stay with the Wallertons. He remembers how John had struggled with the separation from their little military family, because he had told Alexander of it in no uncertain terms in some of the letters Alexander had read over and over, committing them to memory even as he strove to shut out the sentiments that accompanied all thoughts of Laurens, after he had gone away.

“What? You will not come home?” Laf is so bewildered it hurts, and Alex glances around to see his own shock mirrored in the Wallertons’ faces. They had all missed Jack so badly in the last few weeks; it seemed impossible that he hadn’t missed them in return.

“I can’t.” Jack sounds like he’s being tortured, and he won’t look at any of them. Alex is starting to feel frantic, the very idea of watching him walk away again setting off every alarm bell he has.

“Why not?” Alex demands, fighting against a voice that wants to betray him. “Your shitty parents are out of the picture, and you’ve got to go somewhere. I’ve told you enough about other places. You don’t want to wind up somewhere like that.”

He’s not going to wind up somewhere like that, if Alex has to die trying. He’ll kidnap Jack himself and take them both on the run before he’ll watch him walk into another shitty, abusive home. He knows too much to let anyone do that, least of all this dearest friend. He swallows hard.

“I know,” Jack whispers, looking from the Wallertons to Alex and back. He sets his chin stubbornly, in John Laurens’ lines. “But I heard what Phil told you. I’m not taking his place.”

Which is a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever, and Alex looks to Jordan and Marissa for clarification, only to see them looking about as confused as he feels.

“Whose place, sweetheart?” Marissa asks, looking worried. “What did Phil say?”

“About adoptions,” Jack mutters, going crimson, and not making eye contact with anyone. “I know you can’t keep both of us, and you need to keep Alex. I’ll find somewhere else.”

Alex groans, wanting nothing more than to grab Jack by the shirt and shake him senseless. His tone of voice, his body language, it all points to one inescapable conclusion, even if Alex doesn’t have all the context yet. “Are you being selfless again? You are, aren’t you?”

“No,” Jack says stubbornly, sounding more like John for a moment. “I’m being sensible. You need to stay with them. They can’t adopt both of us, and I don’t have your track record with placements. They’ll find somewhere else to put me.”

Alex turns to Marissa and Jordan. “Clarify, please?”

Jordan sighs, looking deeply upset. “I’m afraid he’s right, Alex. Policy mandates no more than two adoptions of Second-Timers by a single family. You must understand, it is for the best - with so many of us coming back in clusters, we risk all sorts of quasi-incestuous situations if we allow too many of us in a single family. We’d been planning to talk to you about it privately, once you’d had more of a chance to recover from your memory retrieval.”

“Jack, is that why you left?” Marissa asks, sounding horrified. “You thought we didn’t have room for you?”

“They were going to send me back one way or the other,” Jack says, sounding so very tired, still looking at the ceiling. “I didn’t want you to have to stress over telling me I couldn’t stay when it wasn’t going to be possible anyway.”

“You told them you wanted to go home, when you wanted so much to stay, just so they could adopt me?” Alex asks, incredulous. That makes so little sense that only one person could be behind that idea, if any doubt had ever lingered. “Well, that’s not fucking happening.”

“Alex?” Jordan says, surprised, and Alex winces.

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” he says quickly. “I just meant - look, I’ve said all along I’m not looking to be adopted, and that hasn’t changed. I’m not going anywhere,” he hastens to assure them all, as everyone suddenly looks at him in concern, “but I never wanted to be adopted. I’m fine on my own.” He shrugs, suddenly feeling shy. “You know, as long as I can still stay without making it formal.”

“If you even think about leaving, I will chase you down myself,” Laf says dangerously.

“I’m not planning on it,” Alex insists. “I want to stay. I just want to do it on my own terms.”

Marissa gives a sigh, somewhere in the neighborhood of a teary laugh. “I guess that will teach us all about making assumptions without actually talking to one another,” she says, smiling at all of them. “Alex, of course you can stay. We’re not about to let you go, whether you share our last name or not. You belong with us.” Alex can’t look her in the face, but he nods, and knows he’s probably as red-faced as Jack right now. “And Jack-” she breaks off, sounding bewildered. “I don’t even know where to start!”

“Start by telling him he’s not going anywhere,” Alex insists. “Seriously.”

“After the past few weeks, it would take a fully armed battalion or a court order to get us to relinquish custody,” Jordan says firmly. “Phil’s already got the paperwork in progress, and we’re not about to let this happen again.”

Jack finally looks at him, so confused that Alex really hopes he still has a lot of the damn drug in his system. How does he not get it? “You really want me to come back?”

“Of course we do. And if you ever get it in your head again that you are not wanted, or that we somehow don’t have room for you,” Marissa says sharply, taking his hand between hers, “we’re going to have an intervention, you hear me?”

“We never planned to send one of you away,” Jordan says solemnly. “I admit, we were disappointed not to be able to offer both of you the option of adoption, if you should want it, but there was never a chance we would have sent you away because of it.” He ducks his head until he catches Jack’s eyes for a long moment, then makes eye contact with Alex as well, watching them both for comprehension. “We may not be able to adopt three, but we can certainly continue to be your home.”

Jack closes his eyes with such a long, slow exhalation of breath that Alex has to wonder how long he’s been carrying that weight, and how heavy the burden has been of believing he was not wanted. He hurts for Jack, and it goes deep, even if he still can’t quite believe how wrong Jack had gotten things. There’s an uncomfortable weight in the pit of his stomach at the thought, and it raises so many questions about why Jack would ever have believed he was disposable for Alex’s sake.

“I didn’t think-” Jack says, and then breaks off, his voice failing him. Jordan stand up and comes closer, putting a warm hand on Alex’s shoulder as he reaches out to touch Jack’s arm. His eyes fly open, and he looks startled.

“You were never a less important priority,” Jordan says quietly, with all the weight of command and all the tenderness of a father. “Not then, and not now. Circumstances informed against us, but we never stopped hoping we could help you.”

“And not just after Alex figured out who you were,” Marissa chimes in, and Jack looks so guilty that Alex knows that was his next line of thinking. “Jack, you watched us searching for you for months! Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t know who you were looking for,” he objects, abashed. “You never said a name, and I didn’t think John Laurens was anyone important enough for anyone to be looking for me.”

Laf groans, slumping into Jordan’s abandoned seat. “This is because you would never read any of the books I wanted to loan you!”

“We were family centuries ago,” Jordan says firmly, “and again now. That has not changed.”

They were, Alex thinks uncomfortably, and they had been - but there had been more than that between Alexander and John, and he really really doesn’t know how to bring that up in casual conversation, even when they’re all sharing so openly. “Yeah, family, but also I was in love with him,” sounds too flippant, and anything more substantial he really isn’t ready to say in front of the whole family. He doesn’t remember enough yet, not of their time together in the main army, to know whether they’d been as secret about everything as they would have needed to be.

He needs to say it, though, because it’s becoming painfully obvious that Jack Laurence is constitutionally incapable of understanding when he is valued, and Alexander has a horrible feeling that trait may have been handed down to him through time by John Laurens.

“Can we go home now?” Laf asks, a little pathetic. “It has been a difficult few weeks. I vote we go home and hibernate until spring comes again.”

“As soon as we can,” Marissa promises with a tired smile. “Nothing like a good long car ride to talk out all these misunderstandings, right?”

Alex shudders a little at the idea, but he can’t deny it’s probably necessary. They can’t risk this sort of thing ever happening again. He glances at Laf, and makes what he hopes is a significant face at Jack, then at Jordan and Marissa, and raises his eyebrows significantly.

Fortunately for him, Lafayette’s tactical genius is another thing that has apparently been handed down over time. Laf jumps up and tugs on his parents’ arms. “Come, we should go get Jack’s things from the car! He’ll need a change of clothes and everything before we can leave!”

Jordan chuckles. “You and your mother go do that, and I’ll find the nurse and see if we can get any information about when Jack will be released. I think we’d all like to get home as soon as possible.”

They leave Alex with Jack, promising to be back shortly, and Alex gives Laf an elaborate look of gratitude. They need a code word for situations like this, he thinks, and turns back to Jack. He almost looks like he’s gone back to sleep again, except that Alex can see his mouth pressed too tightly shut, as though he’s trying not to let something escape.

Alex sighs, and lets himself sink further back in his memories, into the places he’s tried to avoid for so long. He still doesn’t entirely like Alexander Hamilton, and has so many problems with much of the conduct he’s remembered from the man, but in this, he needs the perspective. He’s nearly overwhelmed with Alexander’s emotions again when he lets himself remember, but he holds tight, and looks at John.

“My dear Laurens,” he says quietly. Jack looks at him, and Alexander can almost see the shift in him.

“Hamilton,” he says, smiling drily. “You’ll never be rid of me now, I’m afraid.”

“That is the most encouraging news I have heard in a great stretch of time,” he says soberly. He doesn’t want John to treat this as a joke, or to shrug it off with that gentlemanly reserve of his. “I have lived entirely too many years regretting your absence.”

John looks at him, still too distant, still too uncertain. “I had thought it might be easier,” he says quietly. “For both of us.”

“And here I once thought you a sensible man,” Alexander tells him sharply. “For God’s sake, man, have you no idea what your death did to me?”

“I did not think it too likely to matter,” John says. His eyes are very far away, possibly fixed on something in a world that no longer exists. “You had your life - your wife, your child, your promising career, and with the war over, it was not likely that you would have had need for an old army friend.”

“I had need for you!” Alexander snaps, finally letting himself go a bit. “You were so much of my heart, I scarcely knew how to go on when I received word you had died - and for what? Rice?”

“Honor,” John says tightly. “One last chance at making something of myself, when every ambition I had cherished was falling to ruin.” He looks tired again, but in an older, deeper way, now. “My plans for the black battalions never met with anything but ridicule in the South, and with them, any hope of a political career. I could not distinguish myself as a military leader, or as a diplomat, or even in my conduct toward my family. The war was almost over, and what did I have to look forward to?”

“You should have laid down the sword,” Alexander says quietly. “If you had come with me to New York, to help in forming the new government-”

“I did not want to be a side part of your life,” John declares, some of the old stubbornness back. “You knew my inclinations. You knew the nature of my sentiments. How was I to watch you live your life and stand to the side, unable to be more than a spectator?”

_You know the unalterable sentiments of your affectionate Laurens_ , Alexander thinks, the last lines John had ever written to him. He should have responded faster, more clearly. He had wasted an opportunity.

“You never would have been,” he says quietly. “I have never in my life been more sorry to have left things unsaid. I would to heaven you had never gone south, John.”

John looks at him - finally, openly, directly, and it’s the clearest glimpse of his beloved John Alexander has had since Yorktown. He bites back a sob.

“My dear boy,” John says - sad, maybe, for Hamilton, and himself, and all that they had missed, and Alexander can take it no longer. He moves forward, slow and deliberate, watching John’s eyes carefully, until he’s close enough to kiss him. It’s tentative at first, aching with the loss they’ve both suffered, and Alexander isn’t sure he’s ever been quite so sorrowful at the same time that he is glad.

“Oh, lord,” Jordan says, walking in with a groan not two minutes later, and the boys fly apart, very much Alex and Jack again, and much less tentative than their elders had been. “Here we go again.”

“This isn’t,” Jack says.

“It’s not,” Alex protests.

Jordan rolls his eyes at them both. “You may have pulled the wool over my eyes back in the war, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that modern life has given me a much clearer perspective on certain matters.” He hesitates a moment, then steps back to the door. “I was just looking for the nurse, and thought I’d see if she’d made it back here. I’ll be back in five minutes. Is there any chance you miscreants can behave for that long?” They both nod industriously, and he stares at them for a moment, then shakes his head as he heads out again.

“Well, that was awkward,” Alex says, collapsing onto the end of Jack’s bed. He is not going to put them in a position to get caught like that again - well, not right now, anyway.

“It’s all the pent-up pining,” Jack says, looking improperly amused by the situation. “We’re not to blame. It’s their fault - Hamilton and Laurens.”

“Like that excuse is going to get us anywhere,” Alex retorts, groaning again. “Besides, it’s not true. Not for me, anyway. I’m too well integrated already for anyone to cut me any slack.”

“I’m not,” Jack says, and grins like the smartass Hamilton remembers. “I can’t possibly be blamed for anything.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we’re not both being adopted, then,” Alex muses, letting himself grin a little, too. “That would be awfully awkward.”

“We’ve been through worse,” Jack says, now calmly philosophical. “We’ll figure it out.”

And they will, Alex knows. There’s any number of awkward conversations to have, and memories to retrieve and sort out, and mistakes to be made up for. It’s an overwhelming prospect, the difficulties that lie before them.

But somehow, Alexander Hamilton has found John Laurens, after centuries of loss and countless miles of distance. The sudden, miraculous restoration is a gift beyond anything he could ever have merited. In comparison, the challenges they’re facing seem miniscule. He reaches out and takes John’s hand, tracing letters on the back of it that he’s not capable of saying out loud at the moment, made speechless by the enormity of what has happened to them.

_Yours for ever_ , he writes, and in the millions of words he has committed to paper, he has never written anything so true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late and short on time again, my ducks, but I come bearing gifts! Well, gift, singular, in the form of this chapter. I suspect it may be the last one in this part of the story, but nothing is certain until it's really over. My love to you all, and my sincerest thanks for the amazing, wonderful, heartwarming comments. Will have a replying marathon soon, darlings! Until then - I am, as I ever was and ever will be - Yours, Kivrin.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, kittens! 
> 
> I debated for HOURS over whether to integrate this with the main story or set it apart, and I just couldn't do such a radical change in format after 80k with John as the POV character - so now that story has an angsty little brother over here! Not sure exactly how this will go, in terms of how many chapters each will get, but for now, I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading, thank you for enabling me, thank you for talking to me and screaming at me and crying with me. I really do adore you all.


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